Maintaining a hand under hygienic conditions not only requires cleaning of the hand, but also requires drying to be performed hygienically after the cleaning. To this end, instead of wiping the wet hand after cleaning using a hand-drying cloth, such as a towel or a handkerchief, a hand dryer device is used in which a hand is inserted to an insertion space, and a high speed airflow is injected to the inserted hand to blow water away from the hand, thus drying the hand.
Examples of such hand dryer device include a hand dryer device disclosed in Patent Literature 1. For the disclosed hand dryer device, a hand detection means disposed near a hand insertion portion detects a hand, and a control unit actuates a gas supply unit, such that high pressure air generated by the gas supply unit is converted into a high speed airflow by means of a gas jetting outlet to allow the high speed airflow to jet into the hand insertion portion. The hand dryer device of Patent Literature 1 intermittently drives the hand detection unit at preset time intervals, and when a hand is not detected for a predetermined time period, increases the cycle time of the intermittent driving for reducing the power consumption of the hand detection means.